returning empty places to the shelf
by skywalker05
Summary: Malik is shredding up maps and falling next to all the places where his brother can't be found.


_A/N: I'm not actually part of this fandom, I swear. I'm just good friends with __**wordswithout. **__And the other day I was at 30,000 feet listening to Linkin Park's "When They Come For Me" and in my head Malik started throwing stuff. I was sitting there next to an innocent, unknowing traveler tearing the corners off my notebooks with one hand. _

_Assassin's Creed is Ubisoft's, Dai Faraj is mine, and the maps are Malik's. This fic was helped along by some Fanfic Research ("It's the only thing that will save us now!") by wordswithout._

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_ because even a blueprint is a gift and a curse_

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Afterward he started tearing up maps and seeding the streets with the pieces. Parchment shed between his broken-nailed fingers snowing to the ground and making new elevations: Syria and Jerusalem and the encircling rivers all escaped from their bounds of dusty earth for just a moment to shower from the rooftops onto the street.

(Because his brother can be found in none of those lines, on none of those might-as-well-be-imaginary-they're-so-distant roads.)

He shakes his wrist around and goes for another rolled map.

It's hard with one hand. The gone one keeps twitching and bracing invisibly. He needs to kneel and pull the wooden tube out of the pile and the map out of the tube. It takes some shaking and some turning of the tube upside down. Then he starts at the corners, pulling and cursing inside his head until one thready strip comes off, leaving a rectangle jagged like teeth. The next one comes off at the edge too, because it is sharper there and it's easier for his nails to grip. Then he has to go in. The thin Iranian papers become soft like chewed jerky. The thicker sheets from Egypt become stringy. The borders of the maps are the beautiful, useless parts, decorated with script and meaningless curlicues. It's when he gets into the streets that he starts to regret just a little.

Footsteps hit behind him and he turns. The Dai is there, clambering onto the roof out of the trap door, looking old in his beard and dusty sandals. This man taught the mapmaker how to write.

He says, "What are you feeding the dogs this time?"

The mapmaker has a palm full of papers and as he stands, carefully balancing the no-weight of his sword-lost arm, some paper pieces fall between his fingers.

Dai Faraj draws breath in when he sees.

"He's not in any of these places. So why are they there?" the mapmaker says.

Dai Faraj sniffs for drink on his breath.

The mapmaker throws. Syria and Jerusalem and Damascus rain through the pale blue sky into alley shadows. A pair of people, so swathed and veiled that their gender is gone, look up as they pass. Malik draws back from the edge to bend and pick up another tube.

Faraj says, "Those are very expensive!"

Malik looks at the casing, reading the label on the side. He kneels and sets the tube down so that he can uncork the top.

"Stop this." Faraj picks up the tube. Malik watches his left hand touch the casing at the finger-tips and palm, taking almost none of the weight. Just supporting.

Faraj looks at him with wide eyes and confusion and, is that scorn turning up his beard in the tanned skin at the side of his mouth?

Malik hackles.

Faraj sounds tired. "I know you lost your brother. Now it's time to get your life back." He scoops up the maps, leaving the empty cases that are already devoid of theirs. Malik watches his stooped back slowly descend the stairs inside the cupola atop the Dai's workplace, his arms overflowing with untorn places.

Malik backtracks two steps to the edge of the roof, kicks the pile of papers he couldn't pick up with one hand, and jumps.

The papers explode into the air.

He falls in crossroads and bridges and city markets floating around like tourists' cloaks.

(Maps aren't made for people who know where they're going.)

He grabs onto the signpost for the shop where he has lived for-

months. At least months. After Kadar. Before starting to work again.

-and although the wood bites into his palm he swings around and gets his boots on it for two steps before launching off again.

The map fragments are falling below him now, side streets and cobblestones more ancient than the warring religions.

He lands, his toes relaxed and then touching the ground, tensing, taloned.

The pieces fall until the sky is clear of streets.

Kadar must be marked on these maps somewhere, if only Malik could put them back together to find him.

(Trade from Egypt has been good as the Nile sloshes at its banks but does not flood. Trade from Iran is more difficult, since caravans need to go through contested land to get to Damascus. Malik knows who to trade with and when. But so does Faraj. He even hopes to start trading farther north soon. He does not need Malik. Malik can go back to being an assassin.)

Malik stands.

He starts to walk home (or at least upstairs first to tell Dai Faraj he is going to Masyaf, because Malik's is a very _organized _grief), stepping on his empty places as he goes.

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_A/N 2: It came to my attention that wordswithout had actually killed Dai Faraj many years earlier than this in her fic "And When The Earth Shall Claim Your Limbs". But we both agreed that this story works just as well or better if he's a ghost that only Malik is seeing. _


End file.
